


It's Called a Vacation

by ThatHydrokinetic



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen, and should be appreciated, for this year's truce!, frostbite is underrated, he and clockwork are danny's ghost mentor dads, i hate titling things, this is rated gen but there IS swearing so if that's not your jam keep that in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22057309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatHydrokinetic/pseuds/ThatHydrokinetic
Summary: There’s not much going on, and Danny's entire household is getting over their annual holiday drama, so he goes. He goes ghost and gives Tucker a ride, although they both forget how much Tucker hates that until they’re in the air.“Finally,” Sam says when she opens the door, even though they probably hadn’t taken more than twenty minutes. “Come on.”Her room is as clean as it ever is, and it takes Tucker a few moments too long to realize what they’re supposed to be there for. However, Danny’s eyes scan the room and stick to the crystals like glue.***Sam gets seer crystals for Chanukah, and they all discover a fun new trick.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 96





	It's Called a Vacation

Sam texts them on the last evening of Chanukah.  _ Calls  _ Danny, actually, just to make sure he doesn’t miss it. 

“Get your ass over here,” she tells him. “No danger, I can hear you hyperventilating already. Just exciting.”

There’s not much going on, and his entire household is getting over their annual holiday drama, so he goes. He goes ghost and gives Tucker a ride, although they both forget how much Tucker hates that until they’re in the air.

“Finally,” Sam says when she opens the door, even though they probably hadn’t taken more than twenty minutes. “Come on.”

Her room is as clean as it ever is, and it takes Tucker a few moments too long to realize what they’re supposed to be there for. However, Danny’s eyes scan the room and stick to the crystals like glue.

“These,” she says, waving her hand over the display, “are seer crystals.”

That means nothing to Tucker or Danny, at least on a practical level, although there is something important conveyed by the way Sam has laid them out: four big ones at what Tucker assumes are cardinal points, a smaller crystal between each so it looked something like a star or a snowflake, a black-wax candle sitting in the middle, melting.

“My grandma found them for me,” she said. “They were my gift today. And get this?” Sam throws her arms up. “They work!”

“You’re going to have to start from the beginning,” Danny says. “Maybe I’m dumb, but I don’t know what any of that means.”

“You’re not dumb, Danny,” Sam says, at the same time that Tucker says, “It’s all magic mumbo jumbo anyways, so who cares.”

Sam shoots a cutting look at Tucker, who doesn’t even have the grace to flinch. “You meditate on them,” she tells Danny. “And, the theory is, you can see things, like other places, or even the future!”

“It’s a hoax,” Tucker says.

“Well,” Sam says. “ _ I _ just saw into the ghost zone, so, believe what you want.”

“You did?” Danny asks, and his eyes almost flash in the candlelight. “What did you see?”

Sam wrinkles her nose. “Well, honestly, nothing too exciting. I just got them tonight, so I haven’t had too much time to practice. But I saw Dora! Remember, that princess lady who kidnapped me a few months ago? She’s still queen, I’m really happy for her.”

Danny looks at the crystals. He can’t tear his eyes away, now, but he doesn’t find it startling. He lets his mind drift.

“You were probably just imagining it,” Tucker is saying, although the words seem far away. “Or it was some other ghost weirdness. Everything is explainable.”

“I can see it,” Danny says, because he can. He sees the little island, and when he thinks of the princess, he sees a little girl placing a flower in her hair. He doesn’t know how he’s sure this is happening somewhere, right now, but he is.

Normally, he’d side with Tucker about this sort of thing. He loves Sam, supports her weird witchy exploits, but he’s never really had the luxury of believing in magic.

“Are you doing that?” Sam asks. “Because we can see it, too.”

“There you go,” Tucker says. “Obviously just some weird ghost shit—”

“Then explain how I saw it!”

“We’re seeing the same island, right? It’s probably connected to that place somehow.”

“Try thinking of somewhere else, Danny,” Sam says to him, and his mind rings like he’s a tuning fork. 

“Give me something,” he says.

“Skulker,” Tucker says. He doesn’t even have time to smirk, because Skulker’s face is heavy in the fragmented crystals, frowning at something they can’t see.

“See!” Sam says, exuberant. “Although, shit, Danny. You got the hang of this way faster than I did. And how come we can see it? We’re not meditating.”

“Meditating is the  _ last _ thing I expected Danny to be good at,” Tucker says.

“That’s probably the ghost thing,” Danny says. He shakes his head, shifting his focus to his friends, and the image disappears. “Since we’re looking at the ghost zone. Maybe Sam could see Dora’s place because she spent so long there?”

Both Sam and Tucker were frowning thoughtfully. “That would make sense,” Sam says.

Danny looks back at the crystals. He doesn’t see anything, at first, so he lets his mind wander, kind of like how he’ll let himself float aimlessly through the ghost zone when he’s bored or killing time. There’s nowhere specific he has to be, so he’ll just see where he ends up.

The crystals turn dark. Ghosts, small ones, flicker at the edge of the frame. Sam gasps a little when she notices them.

“What is—”

“It’s a portal,” Danny says, and he can see it now. It floats just above the candle, the wick just licking the bottom of the inky swirls.

“When did that get there,” Sam says, flat, blinking. Tucker’s eyes are narrowed.

“I don’t know,” he says, slipping his PA out of his pocket. “It’s not like any portal we’ve seen, I don’t think. I’m picking up waves. Probably electromagnetic. We’re going to have problems if it’s radiation, though.”

Sam is nodding even though whatever he was saying was going way over her head. She never understands him when he’s muttering like this, but it’s even more beyond her at times like now, when her attention is more on Danny’s distracted figure, the way his eyes are glazed over like he’s about to do something incredibly stupid.

Like put his hand through the thing.

“Danny!” she says, and reaches out to pull him back, but he’s already stepping forward, body half-in-half-out before she can grab him and yank him back. Tucker’s looking up from his PA, but he’s too late to help Sam as Danny steps through.

Sam blows a puff of air through his cheeks. “Are we following him?”

“I could make a very long list of things I’d rather do,” Tucker says. “But, yeah, we’re following him.”

They can still see Danny, and portal’s remarkably stable as they tumble through it. They take Danny out when they land, which, serves him right.

He’s already changed, and his eyes are wide as he shushes the two of them. “Quiet,” he says. “Listen.”

It’s eerily quiet. Just as dark as it looked inside the crystals, the most light coming from the portal behind them and the trails of dying ectoplasm along the floor and the walls. Doors, blank except for iron gates, flicker with faceless ghosts floating behind them, and the whole long hallway is quiet except for an echoing, ghostly scream.

It strikes all of them at the exact same moment that this is something like a jail.

“Hey, guys,” Tucker says, voice barely audible. “You know how there’s been a weirdly low number of ghosts recently? And we chalked it up to the truce, maybe Chanukah or Kwanzaa?”

Sam and Danny nod.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t just that.”

No, it didn’t look like it was. Danny floats quietly down the hallway, peering through the tiny barred windows at the cells beyond. It looked like half the ghost zone was packed into here.

“You know what,” Danny says, suddenly. His tail changes into legs as he lands on the ground, hard. “No. We’re not doing this today. I’ve already had to deal with my parents all holiday season. I haven’t had more than an hour of sleep at a time in a week, even without the ghost attacks. This is not happening today. Self care. This can wait a few more days.”

“ _ What _ ?” Sam says. She pauses for a moment, as if she’s thinking of arguing, but Tucker says, “Honestly, Danny, that’s fair,” which cuts her off at the pass.

Sam glares at him. She’s probably mad about the fact that they’re leaving a bunch of ghosts to a few more days of whatever tortures this ghost prison is cooking up, which, objectively, fair. But Danny’s also right. There’s no reason it has to be  _ him  _ who handles this stuff every time, even though it usually is. He can take a few days.

“Let’s say hi to Frostbite,” Danny says. “Maybe let him know what’s going on. Then we’re going back home, drinking some apple cider, and calling it a night.”

“Alright,” Sam says, then sighs. “That’s fair. Alright.”

***

They take it to Frostbite, who frowns and says he’ll find someone to handle it, says he’ll contact Danny if there’s any problems. Danny promises to visit more often, now that he literally has a portal there wherever he wants it, and then they head back to Sam’s.

They make apple cider and watch horror movies and laugh at the shitty CGI. At some point, Tucker says, “Did we just create a new ghost portal?” and Danny says, voice muffled from the blanket he’s draped himself with, “No, shut up, we’re watching this movie.”

Sam flicks popcorn at Tucker. Tucker catches it in his mouth, and Danny doesn’t laugh only because he’s finally falling asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to @grimgrinningghoul on tumblr! Happy holiday truce!


End file.
